Bottle Of Water And A Napkin Served On 10 Hour Flight As Two “Vegan Meals”

Air Canada has had a long, hot, miserable summer of flight cancellations, delays, and lost luggage – that puts the dreadful performance of U.S. airlines to shame. And even when their flights do take off, it’s no bed of roses, as one woman found out after being offered nothing to eat on a 10 hour flight except a bottle of water and a napkin.

The passenger pre-ordered a vegan meal for her Frankfurt – Toronto flight. What happened next was so absurd it’s gone viral on TikTok.

For her first “hot meal,” Miriam Porter received one bottle of water. For her second meal: an empty napkin

She said she ordered the special meals from Air Canada at least a month prior to traveling and had them confirmed three times.

However, when the first meal came, she said she was bought a bottle of water. For the second meal, she said she was just offered an empty napkin.

@thekindtraveler shout out to the kind flight attendant that got me fruit & dinner rolls from business class ❣️ #aircanada #vegan #plantbased #veganfortheanimals #airplanefood #aircanadafail #toronto #frankfurt #hungry #airplanemode #keepsmiling ♬ original sound – SweeetTails

For what it’s worth everything Air Canada served was, in fact, vegan. That’s not something we can say for every time a passenger requests a vegan meal.

In fact what happened on Air Canada was clearly a miscater. They didn’t board the vegan meals that were pre-ordered and re-confirmed. While you should be able to rely on an airline to feed you in long haul economy or in domestic premium cabins (at least), that’s not necessarily a good idea. Always travel with snacks.

I never had this problem myself, but One Mile at a Time used to report running out of food in Etihad first class. United ran out of snacks in business class with five or six hours left during my Sydney – San Francisco flight this summer.

(HT: Paul H)

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Fly Alaska. All they ever have left in First are their horrible vegan meals that no one wants.

  2. I order vegan meals regularly because I am lactose-intolerant and economy meals often feature dairy prominently (cheese ravioli, chicken in cream sauce, breakfast yogurt…). One time I got a tray of plain white rice and thought that was depressing…who knew I should be thanking my lucky stars to get more than a napkin!

  3. Something doesn’t sound quite right here… Would even a really bad flight attendant just bring a napkin and say “here’s your vegan meal”
    Something sound fishy (no pun intended) about this.

  4. People used to say you should order a special meal because the food was better than the regular catering. I guess that theory just got junked

  5. @Patrick

    Obviously the femoid in the TikTok was just being dramatic for get simps. They probably didn’t have her meals and in typical entitled female fashion she had to be over dramatic.

  6. “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.” – Anthony Bourdain

  7. Air Canada paper napkins are packed with insoluble fiber but are not the best option to round out a meal because paper napkins are not food. For proper nutrition, passengers should pack snacks with high fiber, whole grain staples like brown rice and bran cereal. A napkin would have no calories as our human stomachs don’t digest wood or cotton fiber. You can only get calories from digestible food like high fiber, whole grain staples like brown rice and bran cereal. Who knew Air Canada now offers deluxe no-calorie meals on 10-hour international flights?

  8. This story smacks of ‘I wanna be famous for 15 minutes’. But I suppose it could have happened. As I’ve said for years and years … if you have special food needs when travelling, bring your food with you. I like a floppy feather pillow over my head when I sleep … do I whine about hotels that only have foam slab pillows? No, I just stuff mine in the outside pocket of my suitcase. Relying on someone else to take care of you is a recipe for disaster. Personal responsibility in all things, travellers.

  9. Look at the incel, “femoid”. Really?

    Lactose intolerant here, I too pick vegan so I don’t get “tummy trouble” soon after eating. *You’re welcome*, everyone else nearby!!

  10. Shows how crazy vegans can be that they would rather starve than have a vegetarian meal. Accepting a vegetarian meal means they no longer have the utmost control over others and their narcissistic behavior isn’t validated. Of course they won’t admit that and instead have a made-up food sensitivity they diagnosed themselves where they can only have vegan food for their “medical condition”.

  11. How do you know a person is a vegan? they tell you they are a vegan. again and again and again and again… then they get into their car with leather seats and leather shoes on their way to home depot to buy bug spray to kill the ants in their house.

    Was there NO Salad ?

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